What a great thing…our local food bank puts on what they call ‘mobile markets’. All over Sacramento, at various locations, on various days of the week, folks in need can pick up a bag of fresh food simply by living in the neighborhood. And to make it even better, Soil Born Farms donates fresh organic vegetables to the bags during the summer months! Well, apparently some of the folks receiving the food were unsure how to prepare the fresh vegetables,

so-o-o-o a group of volunteers (myself included) have started doing little cookingdemos at the mobile markets. What fun! The recipes contain the produce included in the bag. The recipes are simple – we all know it’s important when getting anyone to get excited about cookingvegetables it needs to be simple.

Well, I did my first demo last Thursday! My location is at a church where they volunteer their parking lot for the event. How exciting! They have a great little oven/burner camp stove sort of thing that really works – sort of makes you want to go camping just so you can use the cool equipment, a table for the little samples and a little canopy overhead …potatoes and corn were in the bag so we did a corn potato salad, very quick and a big hit. I just cut the potatoes into little cubes, tossed them in a little olive oil and roasted them in the oven at 400D for about 20 minutes; then I removed the corn from the cob and sautéed it, also in a little olive oil, until it just started to brown on the edges. I chopped a little red onion and some parsley and then put all the ingredients in a bowl, added a little salt and pepper and voila – corn and potato salad!

It was tons of fun to do the cooking in front of the folks at the mobile market and share ways to prepare a quick healthy side dish. It is very eye opening to realize that a lot of people are subsisting on pizza and fast food. Just a little fresh produce can be a beginning…I am so looking forward to my next opportunity to do a cooking demo at the ‘mobile market’ and share a few more fresh food cooking ideas with those in need…